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Some around here seem spellbound like giggly schoolgirls by Lars Eller’s blond, boyish good looks. Because nothing he does on the ice merits the support he gets.
Meanwhile, wee Davey gets raked over the coals regularly, even though he is far more skilled and productive, and is minus 1 compared to Eller’s minus 9.
Face it: Eller is, and always will be, a 3rd liner at best!
I remember Dec. 31, 1975

DD is also given sheltered minutes and lots of PP time. He also plays with our teams best wingers. When the EGG line was together it was a thing of beauty but for the sake of one player MT breaks our best line while trying to get DD going. That is why people rake him over the coals.

Missed most of the game, but I saw a nice shift near the end of the 2nd involving the newly formed 4th line. Was good to see them cycling the puck, getting mediocre scoring chances. Glad to hear Diaz got a goal too.

I’m still curious about the habs having so many players on their roster with potentially all 25 of them coming back healthy from the olympic break. The roster freeze is this Friday I do believe.

I think the Habs are playoff worthy, at most a wildcard team. The last few games there’s no grit or heart. Their record are 30-21-6 so far, which doesn’t seem much of it. 9 wins apart from the losses; it’s not enough.
They have to shoot more on net, no more dump and chase or making elaborate passes. Get on opposing players having the puck and put pressure on them instead of standing around to let the opposition play their way. The Jets game, on one occasion, all 5 Habs are in position of protecting Price and only 1 Jet player (who has the puck) was in the zone while the rest are changing… and no Habs are getting to the Jet player? So messed up.
Habs are a grinding team? No grind at all, but they have to suck it up because it’s what Therrien wants.

Anyways, good job on tonight, and onto the ‘Nucks Thursday! I suggest putting the 4th line on first shift…

Like any fan, I’d be pretty excited come the playoffs and puck drop for game 1. But depending on the opponent, things will get very hairy and we may just want to say mercy. Unless, that is, the team adds some scoring or a shutdown D, or uber-optimistically, both.

I really like DD and his story, and I wish the guy the best. I hope he has a great career in the NHL, but I do believe he is the odd man out at centre. I think we have a better shot at being elite with Eller and Plek at C than with DD and Eller/Plek. I’m not sure if DD will be moved however, and at the same time, that doesn’t really seem to bother me much. DD takes a lot of crap but he’s been good since breaking out of his slump. I wouldn’t mind keeping him provided we got a big guy like Cole – that would be a very good top 6 line if it was able to play consistently like in DD’s breakout season.

Anyhow, I think we will know soon enough what MB chooses to do with the logjam, but the most important thing is putting Chucky at centre and moving Gally to his wing. That was a bit of a tangent since I started with the playoffs, but it’s in the same vein – if we are playoff bound and serious about being successful (winning some series), then we need to make some moves to add size and scoring.

I think he’d be upset, DD is one of his best friends so naturally he’d be sad. But I think Max really likes Montreal and he knows he is part of the team, so I think he’d get over it and understand it is presumably for the best.

There’s leaf fans all over this place tonight. I guess they gave up on their game. Would somebody just mod them out..or lets play with them. They’ve been yapping all night. I bet it’s just 1 really sad looking dude who looked forward tonight all day long. Funny part of it is..nobody caught on or engaged them. He/they must be kind of pissed.

Halak… Frick buddy. Got beat 5 times in the shootout. 2 posts. Got beat 3 times in three minutes. Crapped the bed. Gave the sens two points and lost me 3 in my fantasy league.
plus now they wil, start elliott fora bit I bet.

Anyone still think we kept the wrong goalie?
Wish Jaro the best but Price was the right choice without a doubt, even back then. The magical mystery run to the ECF was a fluke – we see it every year; a random goalie gets hot and plays lights out. Kind of like the plug Anderson did for a bit and now look at him. Ander…. Who?

I remember when people complained when MT said the Habs were a grinding team as if the Habs are some sort of offensive juggernaut. They’re clearly not. This team is no different than the teams in the past that won with great goaltending and timely PP goals. Like MT says: “Get used to it”…these are the type of wins they are going to have to do in order to go anywhere. They have only two players who legitimately could have 1pt/game numbers: PK and Chucky. One potential 40 goal scorer who can only score, not pass. The offensive talent is simply not there. I hope MB makes a deal for a young strong defensive RH D-man to pair up with Gorges as a shut-down pair. If you’re only going to score 1-2 goals a game then you better give-up only 0-1 a game.

I agree they aren’t an offensive juggernaut – but to think that PK and Chucky (at this stage) are the pts/game players? Plex and Max have that maturity and ability – but not in this system. And in this system – neither do PK or Chucky.

I wish they could.
But who else other than PK can actually gain the zone and set things up?
Sometimes I think that the reason PK has to hot dog it so much once he gains the zone is because no one is there or no one is able to consistently support him and keep the play alive.

So we gain the zone and then what? When is the last time this team has set up a forecheck? Dump and chase is boring but we can’t do much else.
If anything, the best thing is to try a system that uses our speed to create many rushes, but then again…. when’s the last time we scored on a 2 on 1?

Sorry, we can’t do much else?…except when we do… Hawks, Br00nz, those weren’t dump and chase affairs, they were controlled zone entries, passing plays, with hard chases when required…MT has them playing this completely lame*ss system that forces a bunch of small, fast players to try playing bang ‘em hockey in the corners and perimeter hockey on the PP.

They can’t do those things and win consistently as clearly evidenced since December.

You make a good point, but then what is the difference between those games and other games?
It’s not like MT told the team to play radically different systems.
I think it’s a matter of consistency and I don’t think this roster can consistently play like it did in those games.

I do agree that perhaps a focus on using our speed would be better, but I haven’t seen the team show an ability to consistently do so. Maybe that is because of MT, but I think it’s too easy to say go back to the previous system, there’s got to be a reason we are not doing it if it is so obvious – there must be some limitations that we are overlooking.

“real talents”? Who…our 1st line center DD? BTW teams aren’t stupid. They are not letting them carry the puck in. If you see DD, Briere, Gionta, etc. carrying the puck, do you let them carry it in or force them to dump? C’mon…

Edit…seriously, you expect this small team to compete in the corners, chasing down the centre ice dump ins, with the bigger teams in the league? Play to your strength, and their strength is not physical play, it’s speed.

Ryan White made a big difference tonight on that fourth line. I didn’t think he would have been that much of an impact being his first game back from injury. Weise also looked pretty good, I didn’t know what expect really but he did pretty good considering flying in on a Monday and playing on a Tuesday night.

I said they had a chance of .2 of beating Calgary earlier on in the Day it worked out pretty close. If Calgary had Price they would have won easily. Combo of Defense and Goaltending is Calgarys downfall and Honestly their offence is about the same as the Habs and they’re in a tougher Conference.
Glad the Habs won but they are scary.